Attention is increasingly regarded by cognitive scientists and evolutionary anthropologists as a faculty whose development in human animals is constitutive of what it means to be human. This conference invites papers on (1) the ways in which literary texts encode this faculty (tropologically, discoursively, narratologically, ideologically), and/or (2) the ways in which theories of reading have recognized or underestimated the arts and techniques of attention. We particularly invite contributions developing or dismissing the suggestion that literature offers privileged insight into the function of attention as a possibility condition for the imagination, for agency, and for community formation.

It is our pleasure to announce that two of our invited speakers, Professor Hans Gumbrecht (Stanford University, USA) and Professor Ortwin de Graef (KU Leuven, BEL) have already accepted delivering keynote addresses at the conference.

Please submit an abstract of no more than 300 words to the Organizers to taoa2013@gmail.com and/or taoa2013@kre.hu as an attached Word or PDF file (do not paste your abstract into the body of your email!), and indicate your name and affiliation (if applicable) as well as whether you need any kind of multimedia equipment (projector, etc.) for your presentation. Each participant will have approximately 20 minutes for presentation, which will be followed by a 10-minute Q&A session and discussion. Major academic publishers have already expressed interest in publishing a selection of papers in a post-conference volume.

The deadline for abstracts submission has been extended: it is now 12 PM, March 31, 2013.

We are looking forward to receiving your proposals! See you in Budapest!